They also found that native-born collaborators improved immigrant inventors’ output more than additional immigrant collaborators, suggesting a synergistic relationship. Forthe innovation economist, the political arguments and rhetoric were baselesswithout empirical studies.“If we’ve all grown up under the same education system, the same perspective on life, the same TV shows, then it’s harder for us to find something new about the way we’re approaching things,” Harvard economist William Kerr observed.
But agreat deal had changed in the landscape of immigration since the mid-1900s.
Immigrants Rising provides resources, knowledge and financial support for immigrant entrepreneurs, regardless of status, at any stage of their journey. But if they were from Eastern Europe, theywere kept out.”“I’m always trying tounderstand what affects innovation,” Shai Bernstein, an economist at StanfordUniversity, told me over the phone. “You could have two scientists who both worked in Munich, but one who was born in Hungary and the other in Bavaria. Home; Resources; Events; News; About; Impact; Select Page. “Before we even talk about policy, we don’t even reallyknow the underlying number … what’s the contribution of immigrants toinnovation?
This meant the economists could measure not only the quantity but also the quality of inventions and identify the top 10 percent of patents.
Their method also allowed them to compare the output of immigrant to native-born inventors.Acrosslow- and high-tech sectors, the economists’ research suggests a dynamic that isnot competitive, but complementary and collaborative.Bernstein’s team was alsoable to find support for the importance of global talent clusters. Immigrants Rising’s Entrepreneurship Fund provides grants to undocumented entrepreneurs working to create This is amodel in which there are winners and losers, in which more workers means lessto go around, i.e., 2 + 2 = 3.In their study of immigrantinventors, Bernstein and his colleagues exploited data on the premature deathsof 9,405 inventors in their sample to investigate the impact of immigrants ontheir native-born colleagues.Kerr argues that this isbecause adding more talented workers in these cases actually makes the wholegreater than the sum of its parts: 2 + 2 = 5. Immigrants Rising’s Entrepreneurship Fund provides grants to undocumented entrepreneurs working to create positive social change. Even after trying to controlfor geographical location, technological field, and the year in which inventorswere innovating, the economists were only able to explain about a third of theinnovation gap between immigrant and native-born inventors. But she alsohighlighted another, darker aspect of the exclusionary laws: “The immigrationquotas happened in the 1920s.
In 2018, we will award $250,000 in funding through $5,000 to $50,000 one-year grants. By Stephanie Tam.